Festooned

A festoon is a decorative chain or strip hung between two points-this I relay to you from the dictionary. The holiday celebration provide plenty of encouragement  to drape, swag, run, attach, and hang garlands-both inside and out.  A garland can be a wreath-hung on a door.  Or placed horizontally over the top of a birdbath.  Or over the light fixtures at the front door.  Or in the windows. A wreath in every window-lovely. 

A length of garland, or a festoon, can be made from lots of materials, strung together.  Evergreen garlands are our most popular garland.  An evergreen garland is not only beautfiul to look at, it smells great.  All of our garland is custom made, from three diferent types of fir.  Douglas, noble and concolor fir make an evergreen garland with lots of volume.   

 Our garlands are triple the size of ordinary garland. I like a generous look over a door, or swagged on a gate.  In places where an entrance is really large, I double over the garland, which makes it between 15-18 inches wide.  Fresh garland of this size is extremely heavy-all of those branches are attached to wood from whence those green branches came. 

 

If we need 50 feet of garland to go over an entrance or porch, we cut that garland in half, and reattach it in the center, so the branches are pointing in the same direction, whether they are on the left side, or the right side.  I find a garland where the branches go up one side, and down the other visually disconcerting. All up, or all down-take your pick.

 Should the branch tips face up, or down?  I like all of the leaves of a magnolia garland to face up.  As the leaves dry, they succumb to gravity, fall, and open up.  This makes the garland wider.  The leaves curl beautifully as they dry.  An upfacing position will give each leaf room to make its own statement.   If magnolia leaves face down, they will close even tighter as they dry-gravity will make the leaves hug the woody stems.

 

Evergreen garland hung with the branches facing up will have a wild, cottagy, and rustic look.  The branches will fall out and down.  This is a great look for a large stone fireplace, an oversized wood arbor, a wood fence of good size, or over the barn door.  An evergreen garland for a more formal home might be more subtle and contained, with the branches facing down.

Many garlands are created by tieing boughs to a stout rope.  Thus the word-roping.  The rope is much more flexible than the boughs-eventually the greens will conform to the shape in which they are hung.  A small garland designed for a dining room table might have small branches wired to make a length, as pictured above.  A garland can be very short, and very striking.  Or very long, and equally striking.

Garland on a mantel can be a challenge, if the mantle is very shallow.  I have never been successful in convincing a clients to put brads in a mantel, so I can wire the garland to it-I have no idea why.  This is why garland clips and heavy candlesticks are so popular on the mantel-they keep the garland in place.  I sometimes put heavy pots on a mantel, and tuck the garland behind them.  This keeps everything secure.

We do on occasion attach boughs to a stout bamboo stake, cut a foot or two shorter than the mantel.  The stake keeps the entire assemblage where it belongs on a very shallow mantle.  If you choose this method of construction, be sure to cut off the branchlets on the back side, so the pole can sit right next to the wall.  We almost always insert extra greens into the garland after it is in place, so it looks thick and full.

To drape, or not to drape?  In very formal rooms, I like the garland the width of the mantel.  If the garland in a formal room drapes to the floor, how the garland pools on the floor is very important.  Pooling garland on the floor like heavy taffeta drapes can be beautiful.  On occasion, on a formal exterior portico, I will widen the garland at the bottom, so it pools like heavy drapes.  This means adding extra branches, or an extra section of garland about half way down. 

 In informal rooms, I love the evergreen mantel garland to the floor.  Bulky, not too controlled, and friendly.  I like it loaded with  other natural materials.  Sugar pine cones, dried stems, eucalyptus, berries-the list of materials that can festoon your garland is long.  Wired burlap ribbon, twisted and swagged, can be a beautiful companion.

Not all garlands need to be constructed from evergreens.  Rob is well known for his light garland design-we make lots of them.  They may look a little stilted when they are first hung-be sure you measure the lengths you are swagging-do not count on your eye.  Once those light garlands come on, the heat warms the wires-when warm, they swoop beautifully.

 

Any material can be attached along a flexible base to make a garland.  Pine cone garlands are dense and stiff.  They are great in a straight run.  Need them to drop?  Cut them, and rewire at that spot you need them change direction.  A few years ago I found tubes of platinum colored bead garlands in 30 foot lengths at English Gardens.  They were beautiful on my tree-like jewelry.  Gorgeous garland.

Festive-this is what  garland provides to a home and a garden at the holidays.  This holiday garland is quietly elegant.  Just like my clients.   My garland over my front door-I leave it up all winter.  If the neighbors think I am eccentric, they don’t say so.  It could be they like it as much as I do.

Posted on: December 6, 2012 7 Comments
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Holiday Decorating

 Yesterday was my first indoor holiday installation.  A client with an event coming up the first week of December wanted the bones of her holiday decor in place before Thanksgiving. This pair of topiaries began with moss mat glued over foam cones.  The spiral garlands of reindeer moss, accompanied by a delicate silver wire garland took some time and patience to glue up, but the result is festive and elegant.  The formal dining room sideboard fresh decor can be added just before the event.  Fresh materials at the holiday look and smell great, but I like adding them at the last minute.  Holiday ornament like this-tall, thin, and taking up little space-can be used in lots of different places.  Perhaps next year’s decor will call for them on a mantel.         

The breakfast room has an entirely different feeling than the formal dining room.  A garland studded with faux fruit is draped over the Welsh cupboard.    We filled her wood trough with lots of the same fruit.   This room is ready for the last minute addition of fresh greens, and candles. 

This pair of mossed cubes were topped with coulter pine cones, and variegated English boxwood.  Pinus coulteri is native to southern California and northern Mexico.  It produces the largest cones of any pine.  They can grow to a length of 16 inches, and weigh 10 pounds a piece.  I thought this pair of sculptures would look appropriate in the library.


The moss mat was applied over dry floral foam, making it easy to glue the heavy cones in an upright position, and insert the springs of boxwood.  They have a comfortably masculine look that is appropriate for the room.   

We paid lots of  holiday oriented attention to the foyer.  The moment a guest arrives, what they see first creates a lasting impression.  This is why I devote so much attention to the landscape of the driveway. The end of my drive is the foyer of my garden.  I come home every day, and I want what I see first when I get there to be beautiful and inviting. Decorating the foyer mirror and sconces means there is plenty of room on the table for family pictures, a holiday hostess gift, or a tray of champagne.  The oval magnolia wreath we made by gluing individual leaves over a foam form; the size and shape is friendly to the mirror.  A small suction cup provides a hook; the wreath weighs very little.  The sconces have glass ornament, silvery picks, silver fabric leaves, and magnolia wired to them.       

We dressed the staircase in a long needled faux pine garland.  We added glass holiday ornaments, glittered wire flower ornaments, and silvery pine picks for a soft and dressy look.  The result is beautiful and elegant.  The garland is affixed to the outside of the railing with black zip ties-this is friendly to the wood finish on the railing.  In between each length of garland-a pine pick of the same style.  This helps make a graceful transition from one garland swag to the next.  Most faux garlands are 6 feet long-which may or may not work with the length of your staircase.  The added picks helps to make the garland fit the space.

The living room fireplace mantel is short, with little depth. We attached overlapping bunches of preserved and whitewashed eucalyptus to a bamboo pole, cut to a length just shy of the width of this mantle.  We dressed that eucalyptus with silver fir greens, sparkly picks, and just a pair of bleached cones. Those cones address in a subtle way the color of the brass fireplace fender.  

The result is mindful of the elaborate carving on the mantel, and formal presentation of the fireplace.  Not every mantel asks for holiday garland that goes to the floor.  We will add a fresh and decorated wreath to the space above the fireplace, just before the event.  That wreath will be concolor and noble fir; both of these greens keep indoors over the course of the holiday. 


The fresh fir garland over the front door will stay fresh, given that the air temperature is cold.  The glass ornaments have had their caps glued on, to keep moisture out.  Not seen in this picture, a massive second story overhang supported by columns that will protect the glass from too much exposure to the weather.  The pots at the front door-this we will do next week.  This holiday project is well underway.

Posted on: November 24, 2011 1 Comment
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Awl In

I did mention a few days ago that Buck graced me with a Christmas tool kit full of tools I had never heard of-just last year. I have had occasion this week to make use of one of his choices- a small blue tool called an awl. It makes holes.  Much of what I do at the holiday involves fastening; the ability to make holes can make ther process of attaching one element to another go fast.  My faux fruit is heavy; a solid core has a skin of some rubbery material.  How to fasten it to a banister garland or wreath involved some trial and error.  Awl in hand, I went to work.   

No florist’s pick is strong enough to penetrate the skin of this fruit.  My awl, armed with its long sharpened steel shaft pierced that skin without a problem.  Visualizing where that hole should be punched is not that tough.  I placed the fruit in the position I needed.  Any heavy hard cored, soft shelled thing that needs a hole and a slot substantial enough to attach it to a garland-it made sense to run the awl up the side of the fruit.  I hope I am explaining this clearly.  

I buy 18″ florist’s picks by the bale.  I have no idea what they are made of, but they have the strength of a kitchen skewer.  I was able to insert a length of pick just about the length of the fruit.  This apple is at least as heavy as the real fruit. As my holiday garland will be displayed in the air, I wanted to be sure that faux apples would not be raining down from above. A skewer every bit the length of the heavy fruit-I have leverage. 

A faux white pine garland wired with large cones is the base of this holiday garland.  The garland is not going on the mantle, or above the front door.  The plan is to hang the garland in the kitchen.  I have made a note to think about this for home.  Buck and I spend a lot of time in the kitchen-on our own or with guests.  Why not decorate it for the holidays?  Hmm.  My florist’s pick-I have a fruit at each end, threaded through the wire of the base garland. A lighter fruit at the top, the heavier apple at the bottom.  Naturally.     

This pick with a fruit at each end still needs to be wired into position.  If you have a place that needs faux garland, pass over the flat plastic cedar fronds.  Faux white pine needles provide great volume up front.  Those bristly needles are sticky happy to capture whatever you might add.  The green floral wire needed to attach ornament to to the garland-a dead ringer for the white pine needles.  I like a construction that isn’t fussy, but looks effortless.  

Once my fruit is secured, picked, and wired in, I need to add a distinctly holiday element.  I am a fan of plain holiday ornaments.  I can be a little more fancy-let’s have those plain holiday balls in a number of different sizes. As in berry clusters.  The matte red surface of these small ornaments makes my picked fruits shine.

The stainless steel lights over the sink take well to a little holiday garland.  Why not?  I have ideas, rules, and much to say about garden and landscape  design-all season long.  Frankly, sometimes I make myself weary.  At the holidays, I like to be less concerned about fine design, and more concerned about the simple pleasure of the season.  My distinct pleasure today-my awl. 


A kitchen ready for the holidays-so swell.

Posted on: December 7, 2010 1 Comment
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The Holiday Mantel

 

I have no idea where the tradition of decorating a mantel for the holidays came from.  Perhaps people gathering at a cold time around a roaring fireplace made the fireplace mantle visually important.  Everyone knows the chimney is Santa’s portal-why not make it festive?  I do know that the fireplace mantel is an ideal place for collections of all kinds.  Small objects that need an elevated shelf to be seen, objects of personal or family importance-a mantel can be home to all manner of objects that please, or represent a point of view.  My mantel at home changes whenever the mood strikes me.  There are times when it is empty, and times when it is piled high.  But however you treat your mantel at the holidays-formally or traditionally, as in this mantel-there are construction issues.  

A mantel is a very long, and very shallow space.  It is but one shelf-there are no changes of level built in.  A holiday garland whether fresh or faux weighs plenty.  How to keep it on the mantle and off the floor comes first.  In this case, four very heavy bronze candlesticks provide an anchor for the garland.  Not interested in candlesticks on your mantle?  Drive a series of small brads into the wood mantle surface near the wall, or in the wall.  Appalled at the idea of driving nails?  Lead weights, or bricks can anchor your display, and be invisible.    

Sometimes a holiday mantel calls for a holiday expression on the wall above it.  I find I focus much more on the white rectangular space above a mantel, than the mantel surface itself.  If there is a print, painting or mirror above that mantel, perhaps it could be included in the mantel treatment.  These clients have a considerable collection of native American art-the magnolia and pussy willow holiday medallion was designed and fabricated in that vein.   


The designer Ann Heath, whom I greatly admire, told me just a few weeks ago that she likes holiday decor on the mantel that does not trail to the floor. A horizontal expression-only. I have this idea under consideration.  This holiday mantel treatment is very formal and low key-much like the room. I did the mantel surface only-no trailers.  The picks and pieces are secured to the mantel via 3 coulter pine cones.  Coulter pine cones, the largest, and most certainly the heaviest of any pine cone on this planet, are the ballast for this display.  Faux white pine picks take easily to cut stems of German boxwood.  Bark ornaments and pearl ball clusters weigh next to nothing-the stiff bristles of the white pine help hold some elements aloft.  My recommendation for mantel decor-build up to some height.  Come out away from the wall.  A mantel decoration may be long and thin, but it should be as three dimensional as you can manage.  

Pine cones look like they belong on the mantel.  They are just one of many of nature’s beautiful objects, but they shine in the winter months.   I collect them from the park next door; I buy them from Oregon, California, and North Carolina.  Their shapes are beautiful-no matter the evergreen from whence they came.  The story and the science of the production of cones-astonishing.  The science aside,what gardener does not recognize them as naturally beautiful objects asking for a holiday home.  The more, the better.   

I have in my mind’s eye a mantel overflowing with cones, seed pods, fresh greens, grapevine, bird’s nests just collected once the leaves fell, rose hips, grasses, twigs, bracket fungus-the mantel that is the forest floor.  But there are those who have a different point of view.  Lime green glitter net, lime moss, purple anodized wire-stars from gold wire wesh-this mantel is a smart and sassy holiday dress all my client’s own.  She chose the materials.  From what I know of her, she has a holiday mantel distinctively all her own. I admire the effort anyone takes to express themselves.

Not everyone has a limestone mantel and fireplace surround.  But everyone has a home and hearth worth celebrating.  Get dressed-it’s the holidays.   


No matter how or how much or why you garden, you have something to say all your own.  The holidays are inviting you to speak your peace.  I will be lucky to get the house decorated before Buck and I celebrate our Christmas on Christmas Eve.  But I will give what I have to see that we are ready.  The mantle-what I will do do this year, I have no idea.  No matter-I am looking forward to it.

Posted on: December 6, 2010 4 Comments
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